How to Create a Waitlist (On the Desktop Version)

Increase your earnings by quickly filling last-minute cancellations. Take complete control over how you set your waitlist rules and maximize your appointment schedule with Vagaro's expanded and automated Waitlist feature.

You specifically have four options to choose from:

You Pick: This allows you to manually select a client from a waitlist and add them to an opening slot on the calendar from your Notification Panel when your schedule is full and a customer cancels.

Money Maker: An automatic notification is sent to the customer with the highest-paid appointment on the waitlist. If a customer does not respond within the time frame you set, the opening is offered to the next highest paid appointment.

First in Line: An automatic notification is sent to the first client on the waitlist. If the customer does not respond within the time frame you set, a notification is sent to the client who is next in line.

Instant Book: An automatic notification is sent to all clients on the waitlist. The first to book gets the appointment.

To create a Waitlist in Vagaro, follow these steps:

Click Settings at the top of the screen.

Select Online Appointment Rules on the left side of the screen.

Select the Waitlist Type you prefer. To allow customers to add themselves to a waitlist when they book online, select Customers Can Add to Waitlist.

Adding Customers to a Waitlist on the Desktop Version

You Pick: This allows you to manually select a client from a waitlist and add them to an opening slot on the calendar from your Notification Panel when your schedule is full and a customer cancels.

Money Maker: An automatic notification is sent to the customer with the highest paid appointment on the waitlist. If a customer does not respond within the time frame (Time to Respond) you set, the opening is offered to the next highest paid appointment.

First in Line: An automatic notification is sent to the first client on the waitlist. If the customer does not respond within the time frame you set, a notification is sent to the client who is next in line.

Instant Book: An automatic notification is sent to all clients on the waitlist. The first to book gets the appointment.

Once you select the Waitlist Type, click the green Save button at the bottom of the screen.

Let's explore all the Waitlist options in more detail!

You Pick

In this case, you can manually select the client from the waitlist and add them to an opening slot on the calendar.

Example: Let's say, Sara, one of your employees, gets an account notification that there are five waitlist appointments that can fill a 120-minute slot.

In this case, Sara would manually add the customer by selecting the Add Now button from the NotificationPanel. This prompts the system to send a notification to the customer, confirming they got the appointment. Let's take a closer look at this feature!

Manually Adding a Customer to a Waitlist on the Calendar

1. To add a customer to a waitlist on the Calendar, select Calendar at the top of the screen.

2. Once you get to the preferred day, select a time slot next to a booked appointment. Then click Add to Waiting List.

3. Select the Service. Then enter an Appointment Note you want to add to the booking. Click Add another service to add an additional service to the appointment.

*You can add up to three services.

4. Click the calendar icon to select a Date. Then select a day on the calendar. Click the arrows next to the month and year to select a different month or year.

5. Click the clock icon under Time to select a time frame. Then select the time frame below. If you don't select Anytime, you can select up to two options when selecting times for that day.

6. Click Add Waitlist Date & Time to add additional dates. You can add up to 5 potential dates and times.

7. To remove a date, click the X close option that corresponds to it. Once you select the Customer and you're all set, click the green Add to Waitlist button.

Viewing Waitlisted Customers in the Notifications Panel

1. You can view all your waitlisted customers in the Notifications Panel in the account. To get started, click the bell icon at the top of the screen.

2. Find the Waitlist notification option. Then click View.

3. You can see all the Waitlisted customers. There are two types of Waitlisted Appointments.

Ready Appointments - these are appointments that are booked by the business when a time slot is not available or has been taken by another customer.

Customers on Waitlist - these are appointments that are waiting to be approved by the business.

A blue bell icon next to the Available status means a notification has been sent to the client.

Click Remove to remove the customer from the Waitlist. Click the customer's phone number to contact them directly. Click Browse Availability to check for any openings in your schedule and to add a waitlisted customer to an appointment.

4. If you selected Remove in the previous step, you can confirm the deletion. Click Remove.

5. If you clicked Browse Availability, you can search for an available time from the schedule. Select the Service, Service Provider, and Date.

Click Add Another Service to add an additional one to the booking. Once you're all set, click the red Search button.

6. Select a Time.

7. Select the Appointment Type. Then enter a Comment you want to add to the appointment. Once you're done, click Book.

8. You're all set! You can see that the waitlisted customer has been added to the Calendar!

Money Maker

In this instance, the customer with the highest-paid appointment on the waitlist is automatically offered the opening slot first. If a customer does not respond within the time frame you set (Time to Respond), the opening is offered to the next highest paid appointment.

You can set the time frame in the fields under Time to Respond. This allows you to set a time in which the customer must respond before the slot is offered to the next highest paid appointment. You can set it by day, hour and/or minute.

Example: Let's say we have these 5 waitlisted appointments:

Wendy- $30 haircut / 30 minutes

Helen- $40 haircut / 30 minutes

Doris- $285 haircut / 150 minutes

Jodi- $40 haircut / 30 minutes

Gretchen- $85 haircut / 60 minutes

In this case, the earliest available time goes to Gretchen because she has the highest-paid appointment and fits within the time slot.

Although Doris has the highest-paid appointment, the duration of her service is too long and does not fit within the available time slot.

First in Line

In this case, an automatic notification is sent to the first client on the waitlist. If the customer does not respond within the time frame you set, a notification is sent to the client who is next in line.

You can set the time frame in the fields under Time to Respond. This allows you to set a time in which the customer must respond before the slot is offered to the next person in line. You can set it by day, hour and/or minute.

Example: Let's say Wendy is the first one to get added to the waitlist. A notification is sent to this client first. If Wendy does not respond within the time frame you set, the appointment will be offered to the second client in line. At this point, both Wendy and the second customer can book the appointment.

Instant Book

In this case, an automatic notification is sent to all clients on the waitlist. The first client who books the appointment gets it. The customer will receive a push, email, and text notification with a link to the online booking page.

Select Customers Can Add to Waitlist to allow customers to add themselves to the waitlist when they book online. Once you're finished, click Save.

How to Restrict Employees to Using the Waitlist Feature

1. To restrict an employee's access to the waitlist feature on the notification panel, follow these steps:

Click Settings at the top of the screen.

Click Access Levels on the left side of the screen under Employees.

Once you get to the Access Levels page, select Modify for these access levels:

Comments

I really liked being able to Wait-list them "on the schedule" where they wanted their appointment to be and see it there. I just tried to Wait-list Judy for a brow wax at noon on January 28th. She wants Noon on the 28th. Not anytime in a 3 hour block.

And being able to see it on the day and at the time she wants is more helpful than hidden in notifications. There is a higher likeliness that the Wait-list clients will be forgotten. Unless I allow automated. But automated will offer Judy the 10 AM and 10:15 AM slots she has already turned down....

Is there no way to Wait-list her for a specific time? And an option to see it on the schedule, like before?

Hi Tonya. I will send your request to our management team. At this point, once you create the waitlist from the calendar, it gets added to the Notifications Panel as you already know, but the system does consistently display all your account notifications making it easy to remember and see all the waitlist appointments.

Hi Tonya. If the appointment date passes, the system will automatically remove the customer from the waitlist so there isn't a way to track waitlist appointments once the date passes. Feel free to send a feature request to our development team to add this to the list of projects to work on. To get started, click this link: https://feedback.vagaro.com/forums/915991-feature-requests.

I think this is an awesome feature. If it worked. A waitlist shouldn't have any booking parameters. If someone cancels and there is a waitlist created the waitlist people should automatically be notified. I have my normal booking parameters set at 24 hours, because I dont want a surprise client where I didnt know I had one. But have not been able to use the waitlist when someone cancels day of or day before. That's when you need those spots filled. Please fix that.

Hi Shyne. Customers are notified about waitlisted appointments when cancellations happen. Are you still having issues? I see that you emailed our support team and one of our agents replied. Please review the email when you get a chance. Thanks.